


Intentions

by chainofclovers



Series: Legible [3]
Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Past Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 02:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11003982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: She had to secretly look up the names of the people behind even the most familiar songs.





	Intentions

Miranda’s empty arms hung at her sides, but she opened her hands and turned her palms toward the music. A few weeks ago, Andy’s friend Lily had figured out how to hook up her phone to the speakers, how to make the speakers in every room of Miranda’s house communicate with each other, had taught everyone else how to use their phones to do the same thing, and now an infinite number of songs were available. There was music everywhere. It hurt. But she tilted her palms on purpose. The music went into them. 

They were in the den tonight, this strange group that had collected in her home: Andy and Lily and Sonya and Brian and Howie, and Miranda’s fifteen-year-old daughters, and April, who was mostly Caroline’s friend, and Patrick, who was mostly Cassidy’s. 

And Miranda. She was in the group, supposed she was owed a spot (her house, her kids, her invitation), and where she wasn’t owed she had nonetheless chosen one, or earned one. She was trying. The group was strange only because she was in it. 

At Andy’s urging, Miranda had opened the door to her home wider than usual—just once, to see what it would be like—and Andy had smiled at her and kissed her and propped the door permanently open, nodded to Miranda’s kids, made it clear that the new rules applied to them, too. 

The group was here all the time now, every Friday at least, and sometimes more often. The group was grateful. They tried to put cash on the table for the pizza and salad, for the bottles of beer and wine and seltzer, for the soda and juice Miranda kept on a separate table for the younger ones. They had long conversations with Miranda’s housekeeper, Marcia. (Miranda remembered going out to dinner with her ex-husband, Stephen, how he’d make a point of learning the server’s name and would use it incessantly, would use a human’s own name as a wedge to drive into the conversation, to shrink the person, to demand more of them, humiliate Miranda, humiliate the server, trap them all in a string of words they couldn’t escape. This was the opposite of that.) They were nice to Miranda’s kids, and didn’t seem to mind sharing their evening with teenagers; the teenagers idolized them, cherished every minute. They thanked Miranda when they left at the end of the night. Every time, Howie took her hand, bent to kiss the air beside her cheek, said, “Miranda, it was a pleasure.” Howie was gorgeous and lithe and young and black and a genius. He was as gay as she was, but more self-possessed. 

She was becoming less self-possessed every day; back when she was destroying herself, she’d been magnificently poised, and now she was starting to give it up, to let outside forces have at her instead. Anyway, the group was loud and kind and expected very little, expected only that it was okay to be there, okay to eat and drink and play music. 

Tonight there were more doorbells than usual, and she and Andy took care of answering them together. Miranda had finally invited her best friend Nigel to a Friday, and he accepted even when, or because, she said “I don’t know what it is.” Miranda had invited her cousin Susan, and Susan’s partner, whose name she’d forgotten. Miranda hoped the matter would be settled during introductions, that someone else in the group would learn her name in close enough proximity that Miranda could hear.

Soon enough, the new guests had drinks, and comfortable places to sit or stand, and Miranda was armed with the knowledge that Susan’s partner was named Nicole. Miranda talked. She drank a beer. She accepted a hug from her cousin. (“We won the lottery, didn’t we,” Susan said. “Out of everyone in our stupid family.”) She held Andy’s hand. She tried not to think about what it meant that hardly anyone ever flinched at that sight, or seemed surprised. 

Her mind kept drifting to this morning, waking up next to Andy. She was still half-frozen, but some nights they slept side-by-side in bed, like normal people. This morning she’d woken up early, tried to keep her heartrate down as she enjoyed the feeling of Andy’s hand between her back and her shirt. She’d rolled to face Andy, who wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she’d been completely overcome by the desire to put Andy’s breasts in her mouth. “May I taste them?” she’d asked, and she’d sucked and sucked and sucked, taken turns with each, whimpered against the flesh. She'd never had anything better in her mouth. 

“Oh my God, oh my God,” Andy had repeated, thrashing against Miranda’s mouth. She’d maneuvered their bodies so Miranda’s thigh was pressed between her legs, thrust against it until she came. 

And Miranda, an idiot, had apologized. Apologized inexplicably and irreversibly despite the moment being the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. For what? For not using her hands? For insulting Andy with her fear? Regardless, sunlight had flooded the room, sharp and confident despite the closed curtains. 

Tonight the tempo of the music changed, and changed again, and Miranda was a receiver, translating the waves of the room into something she could use. Why did she open her palms? Because she was cleaning a room, and was in the awful stage of having taken everything down off the shelves but having put nothing away, and you couldn’t get past that stage without making the choice. Because some part of her wanted to hear everything. 

It was exhausting, and when she noticed Lily sitting alone on one of the two couches, Miranda sat down next to her. She smiled at Lily, pretending Twin Shadow wasn’t shredding her insides. She only knew this album was by Twin Shadow because she was forever stealing glances at whichever phone currently played music. She had to secretly look up the names of the people behind even the most familiar songs. 

“Happy Friday,” said Lily. She tilted her beer bottle in Miranda’s direction, a one-sided cheers. 

“You too.” Across the room, Andy laughed at something Susan or Nicole had said—a great honking bark that made Miranda and Lily look up. Andy was deeply absorbed in the conversation, and it only then occurred to Miranda that the night was significant for Andy because it included her first real conversation with anyone from Miranda’s extended family. She would have felt chagrined that she had barely helped Andy through it, but it didn’t look like anyone needed her help. “Lily?” she started. She’d been holding a question for a long time. “What are her parents like?”

Miranda expected effusive praise, but Lily’s smile shrunk to a curve at one side of her mouth. “They’re good people,” she said mildly. “Well. Her mom can be a little ‘I’m not racist, but—’ if you know what I mean?”

Miranda nodded. “I think so.” She smoothed her hands over her thighs. “They’ve got their big July Fourth party coming up, and we were going to take a long weekend and go, but Mrs. Sachs suggested it would be easier on everyone if Andy didn’t bring me.” 

Lily rolled her eyes. “Oh, lord.”

“So now Andy’s not going either, though I told her I wouldn’t mind if she went.” 

“Yeah, she’s not interested in going places without you.”

“I see that now.” 

Lily shifted so she could face Miranda more fully. “If her parents are falling down on the job, somebody should ask you your intentions.”

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe? I mean, I’d like to hear them.”

The room was loud. Miranda glanced at her daughters, made certain they were occupied elsewhere. This was one small conversation in the middle of a party. Just a bit more noise, unexceptional and easily missed. She fought the urge to clear her throat. “In the early eighties, when I was just starting my magazine career, I was around a lot of drugs and I ended up with a little cocaine problem.”

Lily’s eyebrows went up, and her mouth pulled down a little. “Wow. For how long?”

“Only six months or so. I wasn’t in as deeply as some of my friends, but—it was bad enough. The crashes were really terrible, and I actually didn’t love being high, but all of a sudden I didn’t know how to be in the world without the promise of it.”

Lily nodded. Miranda wondered for a second if she would speak, but she stayed quiet.

“I got through it, obviously. I haven’t been tempted for years.”

“Does Andy know?”

“Yes. When she worked for me, we left a couple industry parties early because there was too much coke and I didn’t feel comfortable being around it. She figured it out. But since then...we’ve talked about it.”

“That’s good. I mean, you and I both know Andy can be a little judgy, but she’s understanding about things like that.”

“She is. But you asked me about my intentions, and I chose a roundabout way of explaining them. Back then, I dreaded crashing but I knew it was inevitable. If I wanted to feel good, eventually I was going to have to trade that good feeling for an anxiety attack, or I was going to have to concede to sleep, even knowing I’d have nightmares. And the fear of those experiences was almost worse than the thing itself.

“This relationship...I keep worrying that I’ll feel that fear coming on. That fear of the crash. If I feel it, I’ll know something’s going to go wrong. But I don’t feel that way.”

“So you’re saying you’re scared that you’ll get scared in a way that’ll signal your impending doom, but so far so good?”

“I don’t feel doomed,” Miranda said. “For the first time ever.”

“Fuck.” The word was solemn. 

“Right. I love her, and she loves me, and I don’t feel doomed. So I promise to give her a good life for as long as this is what she wants.” 

Lily looked at Miranda head on. “I was wrong about you at first. Which is probably the story of your life.” 

Miranda chuckled. “Pretty much.”

“I think Andy’s parents will come around,” Lily said. “But if they don’t? Fuck ‘em. It’s not worth it. If you have something that valuable with Andy, that’s more important. And I think Andy sees it that way, too. Besides—” she gestured with her chin at her friends “—we love you already. We think you’re great.” 

Miranda didn’t know what to say. 

“All the same?” Lily added. “A little dating advice.” She grinned. “When you do meet the parents, maybe don’t start with the story of how, when Andy was a toddler, you were already a cocaine addict.”

It was Miranda’s turn to laugh loudly enough that Andy turned to look. Maybe it was their happiness at having Andy’s eyes on them, or the story she’d shared, or the fullness of the room and the songs and the moment, but Lily offered her hand and Miranda took it. They only held hands for a moment before Andy was there, having snatched her camera from the end table. “My favorite ladies,” she said, and she snapped five or six photos in a row.

Lily gave Miranda’s hand a squeeze, then left the couch on the pretense of needing to change the music. Andy took her spot. She was a tiny bit drunk; her face was shiny and flushed, and the smile stretching across her face was even more out-of-control than usual. She leaned against Miranda, flung an arm across her belly. “My favorite room,” she whispered, then thought better of it. “Second favorite room. My favorite people.” She made her touch more intentional. “My favorite person.” 

“Hey, Mom!” Caroline shouted from her spot on the floor. “Can April’s dad come in for a minute? He hasn’t seen the Rube Goldberg yet.” The Rube Goldberg machine was a school project the girls had completed together—an elaborate contraption that could, after about twenty mechanical steps, dunk a cookie in milk. It had taken third place in a contest at the end of the school year, and had lived in the Priestly hallway for over a month. 

Maybe they could invite the FedEx guy to this party, Miranda thought, and all the neighbors, or find some strangers walking down the street and bring them in too. “All right,” she said. “Go on and set up the milk.”

Even though most of the group had already seen the Rube Goldberg in action, everyone watched. 

It worked. It didn’t always work, but tonight every gadget fired: the super ball, the paper clip chain, the tiny hammer. The Oreo slid down the chute, landed halfway into the milk. Amidst the cheers, April rushed to rescue it—“You have to take it out right away!”—and handed the already-sopping cookie to her father. 

“Thanks,” he said, popping the Oreo into his mouth. “We should get going,” he said when he’d finished chewing. He turned to Susan and Nicole who were, somehow, the only people there he hadn’t already met. “It was nice to meet you.” 

Their leaving triggered the end of the party. Patrick would ride home with April, and everyone else would walk to the subway. During Howie’s air kiss, Miranda watched Lily whisper something in Andy’s ear. 

Lily was last to leave. With the door already open, she pushed a button on her phone and plunged the house into quiet, traded the music for the humid air of midsummer. “‘night, Andy. ‘night, Miranda. ‘night, C-squared.”

“It’s so, so late,” Miranda said when the door closed. “Right to bed, girls.” When they were gone, she asked Andy to go on up. 

There wasn’t much to take care of. Brian had taken the pizza boxes and recyclables outside, and she’d had Cassidy and Patrick clear everyone’s plates. Miranda carried a few glasses to the kitchen, turned out all the lights, stood in the dark at the base of the stairs. She thought about the sounds a person could make. The instruments we fashion. She thought about what it is to take off your shirt and lie with your skin against the sheets. She grabbed the handrail, started to walk upstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> Current plan is for this to be the second-to-last installment in this series. I've got one more story in the works; the existence of this one was a surprise to me.


End file.
